Cake Creations BKRY-Small Biz Relief Fund COVID19

FAMILY BAKERY NEEDS YOU

THIS IS A STORY ABOUT CAKE, COFFEE, & COMMUNITY.

http://cakecreationsbakery.com/  

Cake Creations Bakery and Café needs your help to make it through these quarantine days. This local San Mateo coffee shop has been feeding its small corner of San Mateo for 25 years. Now, this family-owned business is facing challenges paying rent and making sure they can continue to feed their community.

Some 25 years ago, Vicky and Pablo Co moved to San Mateo, California from Florida. They started small, opening a small cake shop with Vicky’s sister Lily in a warehouse with no retail space. Eventually, after some rough years and hardship, they grew their business into a thriving café that serves coffee, cake, cookies, pastries, and some of the best sandwiches in town.

“The sandwiches are our number one seller,” Vicky explains. Shortly after the café opens at 6 AM, the construction workers come by for some of these sandwiches and coffee. The next wave of customers—parents, students, and teachers—start showing up right before the nearby school bell rings. Then that wave of customers is followed by the tech workers, the policemen, the neighborhood shoppers.

Vicky worries about failing her customers. “I would hate to leave the
neighborhood with no coffee shop,” she says. “We love what we’re doing. We love our customers. And they love us and miss us.”

Like many small restaurant owners, Vicky has had to reduce her business to takeout service only. But the reduced flow of customers doesn’t match the sales from when the neighborhood was open, busy, and thriving.

That’s why Vicky and her husband now need your help. The funds will go to keep this café open for the community, and for the restaurant’s employees. Rent and other bills continue to pressure this small business, and the funds will help the Co family bridge the gap.

“With shelter in place,” Vicky says, “everybody’s thinking we’ve got so much free time. But it’s not really free. You’re thinking of your business, you’re thinking of the bills, you’re thinking of the next thing that’s going to happen.” Vicky admits to many sleepless nights. “We just cannot afford to pay the rent and keep the business going.”

The Co family has encountered hardship before. “The first three years were very hard,” Vicky recalls. “When we started, we were new to California. We didn’t know anybody. Nobody knew us. We just kept putting out all the products and dumping them because no one was buying.”

Vicky and Pablo scrambled to stay afloat as best they could with loans and even financing their business with credit cards. “We worked so hard,” Vicky says wistfully.

The hard work paid off. Eventually, they expanded out of the warehouse into a retail space. And some 10 years later, when the shop next to that became available, they took over that space and expanded to serve more customers, more coffee, and more cake.

“We kept continuing,” Vicky explains, “because we had the passion. We
didn’t even realize it’s been 25 years. If we only knew,” she smiles behind the mask she wears behind the cake counter. She talks about their 16-hour days that start at 4 AM. She talks about the cakes and sandwiches and the customers she now misses. “We love what we do,” she explains. “With our passion, we just kept going and going.”

The Co family appreciate anything you can do to keep them going.